757Driver

Yes,

I'm tired of Duane Worth and his band of merry men going from airline to airline insisting that total capitualtion is mandatory with absolutely no snap-backs to previous levels.

Continental has proven that the cuts we took were not only excessive, but unwarranted as well. Our 5 year piece of sh!t that 58% voted yes for was largely unfinished and signed before the details were even finalized. Who signs ANY contract before the details are worked out, would you? Ask most of the CAL yes voters if they regret falling for the Company and ALPA BS scare tactics and you'll receive a resounding YES.

I voted No and still am convinced that these gigantic cuts were not necessary. Yes perhaps short-term cuts were inevitable and I might have given a 2 year deal a positive vote, but to totally surrender the way NWA is can't be reversed. This BS about fighting another day is just diatribe and I don't believe it. If we don't take a stand somewhere, we all might as well work for minimum wage.

NWA Pilots have held the line better than anybody for the last 30 years and I just kind of expected more. Also the idiot who is stating that "at least he keeps his job" is very short-sighted indeed. If getting furloughed kept the pay and work-rules intact, so be it. Its been that way for Pilots for the last 50 years and I for one, would take a furlough with the possibility of returning to a full-pay job than the crap that these guys will be receiving in the interim.

Who do you work for and what's happening in April?

FlyByWire

Delta. In April the arbitrators make a decision unless an agreement is made, and right now that aint happening. The demand is to keep our pension, and the company of course wants to dump it as UAL and USAir did, plus other deep cuts as well. It's not easy to get anything done when everybody else is giving away the farm to save the company and the jobs, and LCC or lowered paid pilots chip away at our network with lower cost that we have to match. They dump our contract in April, and then we walk. I think the 15th is the day, but I am not exactly sure. NWA has held the line more than, any other airline in my opinion, and look what they had to do to keep the ship a float. That was with a 93% strike vote, and their negotiators playing hardball to the point that even the judge skipped out on giving a decision! This is the lowest point this airline industry has been. The glory days are in my opinion long gone, mostly because these flight school tells these dreamers about tons of jobs that will pop up in, the future. What they do not tell them is those jobs are not really their, and everybody is killing each other to survive. I for one am back in school after 18 years at DL. I expect a shut down of DL if we fight to the end, or a contract like NWA got, which I think is as good as anybody can get in chapter 11. Their frozen pension still has hope; ours will probably RIP along with DL.

757Driver

FBW,

I wish you guys the best. My goal early in my career was to set-up shop at either United or Delta. Delta wasn't doing much civilian hiring when I got the job at CAL 17 years ago so I got what I thought was to be a temporary job there.

I guess you really will never know if you made the right decision right up until the day they hand you your retirement check.

The whole point I'm making is that we need to stop this crap where our overpaid management seeks a cut from us everytime one of the following happens, (pick one or all):

9/11
Fuel Prices spike
LCC's come to town
Economy is in the tank
Whatever

These dickheads running our airlines fully expect to make record paychecks while they run the place into the ground and have us make-up for every problem they face.

Enoughs enough. I hope you guys defend the profession because the rest of us have let you down.

Good Luck and I truly mean that !!!

FlyByWire

"These dickheads running our airlines fully expect to make record paychecks while they run the place into the ground and have us make-up for every problem they face."

That is the core problem, but its not just the airlines, upper management in any big corp. is overpaid. The medical insurance is in disarray, but CEO's there make as much if not more that Airline CEO's. This screws it up for the disappearing middle class, and that is part of this core problem.

However with that said, if you have a LCC competing head to head with you and their overhead is lower than yours(No Pension, Higher insurance, cheap Wal*MArt pilots, lousy work rules), plus they have enough cash to sustain selling tickets at below their own levels for 5 years, what are you to do to compete?

freezingflyboy

I am making this post with the full knowledge that I will get flamed and that I haven't quite figured out the difference between my head and my a$$ but here goes:
I see 2 problems with the airline industry and they are not new problems at all.
1) Airline management has gotten ever greedier and we, as a labor group, have let their greed destroy many companies. Like I said, this is not new. A few names come to mind...Icahn, Lorenzo, Chechi... Why is this? I think its great that the AA groups kicked Carty out on his gold plated a$$ after that deal with the management bonuses and labor paycuts, there needs to be more of that. We, meaning all labor groups, need to grow a pair of brass balls when it comes to management jerking us around.

2) Pilot productivity is an area where I see a lot of waste. How is that SWA can have on of THE BEST pay scales in the industry AND be turning a profit. Don't say fuel hedges because the math just doesn't add up on that. The answer is PRODUCTIVITY. Yes, their pilots fly a lot and therefore get paid a lot. But you don't hear a lot of whining, do you? Imagine how great it would be if you worked at an airline where people actually enjoyed going to work rather than doing everything they could to get out of working. If every employee did their damnedest to make that the best company out there, I wonder how that would translate to profitability and ultimately working conditions. It seems to work for SWA.

I know these aren't the only problems with the industry, but the way I see it these are the problems we, as pilots, have the most control over.

Now, I'm going to go wipe the snot from my nose and put on my flame retardant suit

astrojet

many nwa pilots have been logging on to www.votenegative.com the click shows out of over 1000 votes 80% said no on the TA.

calcapt

You asked for it!

If you don't think fuel hedging is accounting for Southwest's proit numbers you are sorely confused or need new batteries for your calculator. Southwest has productive pilots and you are somewhat correct in assuming that this productivity helps their operations; however, don't be misled that it is that simple - it's not. You will no doubt begin to receive the fireballs soon.

crewdawg52

One NWA NO vote here! Too many B.S. items I.E:
1) Contract intil 2011 (NWA will show record profits in '08 I'll bet)
2) 5% DCF (whoopie....I get 45k for retirement AFTER I WAS PROMISED a
pension and part of my salary went towards that)
3) The whole NewCo or SJ or Dougies Line or whatever it's gonna be called

In reality, the list is just too long to write the whole thing up......

FlyByWire

Lower overhead from competition, and yes fuel hedges wil be the big two reasons why the fireballs will fly at SWA. I hope I'm wrong, since they are by far the best Low Cost Carrier out there, but this will be the next factor.

fireman0174

I'm not a NWA guy, but one thing that caught my eye was something about the number of RJs wouldn't be finalized until one year after bankruptcy exit?

Is that true?